New paths for real power
Embrace Vulnerability and Cooperation
One of my favorite things about this time we live in, is that archaic ideas of power as dominance, manipulation, and control no longer resonate with many of us. Today's landscape paints a different picture: seeing real power flourishing through vulnerability and cooperation.
Gone are the days when vulnerability was seen as weakness. It's now pretty mainstream that the courage to face uncertainty and the willingness to expose one's authentic self is where true power resides. It's the CEO who admits her fears in a board meeting, implicitly granting permission for others to speak their truths. Without needing to wear a mask, leaving behind old models of power-over, one-sided ruthless strategy, and manipulation, instead choosing to embrace the courage to brave into uncharted territory, knowing she’s opening the door to where real power lies.
This openness paves the way for genuine connections, it invites realness, grants access to true life force, and fosters a cooperative environment that becomes the bedrock for collective success. Cooperation is no longer seen as a 'nice-to-have'. It's the engine of innovation and deeper ways of being a human society. When we combine our diverse strengths, and stay true to who we really are, we form an unstoppable collective force. It’s in this synergy that real power comes alive — not in solitary towers, but in united circles.
There is a space where power naturally surfaces, not because one strives for it in ego-driven ways, but because, having released the ego’s relentless need for power, a need to hide the inner sense of powerlessness, and letting go of the ego’s wish to isolate and protect itself, then real power happens, effortlessly.
When we’re tapped into real power, vulnerability doesn’t feel scary, masks are not needed, and braving the raw space of connection is natural. There’s nothing to fear. In the contrary, the ego-driven search for power requires cold strategy and calculated action, and needs to fake external power to cover up for inner feelings of unworthiness. The ego-driven pursuit feels difficult, demanding, consumes too much energy, and promises rewards it never delivers. True power comes from knowing oneself intimately, from being ok with ones inner makings, having educated the ego, and not needing manipulative strategy to hold a fake being. It’s also effortless, feels good, is light, and instead of consuming energy, is an endless source of vitality in itself.
Cooperative power is also a natural unfolding from letting go of the ego’s need for a mask of individual power. As we let go of the ego’s need for separation and a pretend power which disconnects us from others and from our real selves, then all sorts of collaborative forces open up. It’s an untapped source of creative power that is not individual, a not-person-based well of real power. Like being connected to Life Force. It feels effortless, and fosters connection. It feels like breathing fresh mountain air.
Exploring vulnerability and cooperation unveils the force of our true potential, steering us away from antiquated notions of power that have historically guided humanity towards destructive paths. We have an abundance of much more creative paths waiting to be paved. Vulnerable, connected, and deeply powerful in beautiful new ways.
